Just finished watching Synth Britannia (i-player link but it's 1.30 long so don't start watching it now!), an astonishing run of happy men in rooms full of significant synthesisers punctuated by the occasional rant about how the music press HATED them. I'm a little confused about this as I read Smash Hits -- or Q, if I wanted to feel sophisticated, and they loved all that stuff. I was aware that people who were into music read Melody Maker or NME and had tried one or other of them a few times, but frankly they were inpenetrable, bewildering nonsense, full of in-jokes and bitching -- and my limited capability for that was already taken up reading 2000AD and its chums. For those who are fans of either, pretend I picked up the other one. I'm sure they were wonderful if you got to know them.

Anyway, Synth Britannia played out on Moroder/Oakey's Electric Dreams and I ended up telling Tim the plot of the film which he had never seen but which, it seems, is branded on my brain for all times. The plot is that old chestnut -- boy meets computer, girl moves in next door, girl borrows computer, computer prefers girl, girl prefers boy, tragic love triangle finally resolved by computer leaving for -- well, the internet didn't exist then, so it went off into the electrical grid. The computer got intelligent by being struck by lightning and having half a bottle of champagne spilt on it, in a dramatic, blue-lit scene. I'm forced suddenly to conceive of the possibility that my emotional life has been permanently warped by preferring the computer to either of the romantic leads in a terrible 80s romcom. Changed! I mean changed.

Gary Numan looks a bit nervy, and there's a sense of great sorrow about the guy from Soft Cell, but the rest of them seemed quite cheerful; happy men and women in huge nests of electronics and blinkin lights, reminiscing about favourite drum machines and hairstyles. Strange how things which originally presented as dystopias just turned out to be new habitats; ones to which certain people were ideally suited, and quickly became habituated. Concrete islands full of happy electric people in technological nests, beeping and tweeting.

Speaking of music, anyway, Audioscope. Highlights were twinkly delicacy from Remember Remember, beepy electro played with REALLY LOUD GUITARS from Bilge Pump and Maps's new dance/no dance stuff -- here's a preview of Love will come. (Youtube links)